The XXIII Winter Olympics: Day 8

Ok, so I’m kind of cranky because I spent all day hassling my ISP (yeah, day two of that) because my Modem/Wireless Router suddenly lost all my networking information like its name and all the passwords and it’s kind of a big deal since I have about 10 or 15 devices that log in at various points (I have visitors, much as I’d like to live in a mountainside cave with my fictional goats) and I’ll be damned if I have to go back and update each one of them. And then NBC dumped Curling (Men’s USA v. Sweden) in favor of Men’s Figure Skating Short Program (Nathan Chen has fallen and he can’t get up, really, he didn’t land a single jump, you can’t make that up in the long program. Japan looked outstanding), stupid Cross Country (Taufatofua was wearing a shirt just like everyone else), Women’s Cross Race Snowboarding (cut away just as I was getting into it, Turn Left Racing on Snow), Men’s Skeleton (actually like that), and a truly boring Hockey game (Men’s) between Slovakia and Russia which Russia won 9 – 1.

In depressing developments we have an Austrian Snowboarder, Markus Schairer, who broke his neck (5th CV, expected to recover) and Mikaela Shiffrin is not getting a Slalom Gold. There is more depressing news you can look up because there is ever only one winner, but there are always plenty of losers.

In Curling (and I hate that I have to find this on line) the good news is that the Women’s Team is ahead of Canada in the Round Robin (remember, only the top 4 advance). The bad news is that we are ranked 8 of 10 with but a single victory against Britain. Japan (undefeated), Sweden, and Britain have the top 3 spots while 4th is a tie between South Korea, Russia, and Switzerland.

Men’s Curling is just as dismal, if not more. Team USA is 9 of 10 (well, tied for 6th) with but a single win against South Korea who are the only team without one. Leading at this point are Canada, Sweden, Britain, and Italy.

In Women’s Hockey Canada and the USA are advancing out of Group A and Switzerland and Sweden are advancing out of Group B. Canada and USA are guaranteed a position in the semi finals; Finland, Russia, Switzerland, and Sweden will face off to select 2 teams for the semis.

On the men’s side things are not very advanced. Canada and the Czechs have the lead in Group A. Slovakia and Slovenia have the lead in Group B (this is the group the USA and Russia play in). Finland and Sweden have the lead in Group C.

What’s coming up? Who knows? Alpine schedules are all screwed up because of the bad weather earlier this week and NBC is all screwed up because they like Figure Skating which I despise. This is what is supposed to happen.